


and i believe

by DizzyRedhead



Series: 600 Follower Giveaway [5]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Derek "Nursey" Nurse is Unchill, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Holiday birthdays suck, M/M, Minor Chris "Chowder" Chow/Caitlin Farmer, Seriously I think I gave myself cavities, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-18 01:52:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10606836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DizzyRedhead/pseuds/DizzyRedhead
Summary: Having your birthday on a major holiday sucks, especially when all your friends' plans just remind you of your single state. Derek just wants to sleep and forget that there is such a thing as Valentine's Day.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silentawe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentawe/gifts).



> For silentawe who won a fic as part of my 600 follower giveaway. They requested: "nurseydex, maybe a birthday fic where the gift (or party, or cake, or effort, or whatever you want) leads to a feelings reveal?" This kind of got away from me a little and has a lot of feelings; I hope you like it!!!

“...I wanted to take her into Boston but Cait and I both have early class on Thursdays, so she said it would be too late of a night. So I got reservations at Emilio's and I found a stuffed shark just like mine--” Chowder breaks off in the middle of his ramble as they come through the Haus door and head for the stairs, his eyes concerned. “Are you okay, Nursey? You look a little…” 

Derek snaps out of his self-pitying inner monologue and quickly adopts his Supportive Chill Face. “No, I must have been thinking about something weird, but that sounds great, C! Farms is gonna love it. You’re like, boyfriend of the year.”

Chowder blushes, successfully diverted. “No way! I’m not even close to being in Jack’s league. Someday maybe I’ll be able to buy Cait 15 dozen roses.”

“Whatever, man,” Derek says, bumping his shoulder gently into Chowder’s. “You know Farms doesn’t care how much money you spend.”

“I know,” Chowder agrees, his face clearing. “But she deserves it.”

“She a hundred percent does,” Derek says, peeling gratefully off toward his and Dex’s room. He needs to be done with this conversation. “Y’all are gonna have a great Valentine’s Day.”

Dex looks up from where he’s stretched out on his bed as the door closes behind Derek. There’s a vertical frown line between his eyebrows. “Everything okay?”

“It’s chill,” Derek says automatically, the response instinctive. “C and Farms have some pretty sweet Valentine’s Day plans; it’s a good thing Rans and Holster aren’t here to throw their V-Day kegster, huh?”

“Especially since it’s a Wednesday this year,” Dex agrees, but that frown is still there. 

As much as a part of him wants to talk, wants to bleed his feelings out into words, Derek knows better. Nobody wants to deal with that kind of mess, but if Dex keeps digging, it’s going to spill free eventually. Derek needs a distraction. “Wanna watch something?”

“Sure,” Dex says easily, sitting up and reaching for his laptop. “What were you thinking?”

Derek shrugs. “I don’t really care. You pick.”

Dex clicks around for a minute. “We still haven’t finished the third season of Great British Bake-Off?”

“Fuck yes,” Derek says fervently. “Maybe you’ll get all inspired and make something again. Those scones were practically fucking orgasmic.”

“Whatever,” Dex mutters, his ears going pink, his eyes fixed firmly on the screen as Derek crawls onto the bed next to him. “Bitty’s are better.”

Derek shoves gently at Dex’s shoulder, using it as an excuse to get right up in his space. “Nope, Poindexter, no false modesty here. Those were just as good as Bitty’s. We’re not just eating your baked goods out of pity, you know.”

Dex rolls his eyes. “No, you’re eating them because you’re all bottomless fucking pits who burn approximately 16,000 calories a day,” he retorts, selecting the next episode of GBBO and maximizing the screen. “Now shut the fuck up so I can see what they’re doing.”

Mel and Sue do their intro, the theme song plays, and Derek lets himself relax into the moment, enjoy what he has here. The solid, reassuring warmth of Dex next to him, the soothing music, the comfort of the space that they transformed, slowly but surely, into theirs. 

He’s got a lot, really. There are so many good things in his life.

It would be selfish to ask for more.

* * *

“Rans and Holster would be disappointed in you!” Ollie throws over his shoulder as he and Wicks leave the table to dump their trays.

“What did we do to make our ex-captains cry this time?” Derek asks, settling into the seat between Dex and Chowder. 

Dex snorts, forking up another bite of his eggs. “Decided we’d rather not spend our entire Thursday morning practice after Valentine’s Day puking all over the ice after a kegster. There’ll be plenty of time on the weekend.”

“Ollie and Wicks don’t think so?” Derek asks, cutting into his omelet.

“Something something single girls on Valentine’s Day something something,” Dex says after he swallows his food, his voice disdainful.

Derek’s eyebrows fly up. “Shit, man. Do you think Shitty can feel the disturbance in the Force from Boston, or do we need to text him?”

“I told them they were being sexist, predatory assholes.” Dex shrugs. “But C and Tango and I had them outvoted on the kegster even before you got here, so they’re going to drown their sorrows at some other party.”

“It’s gonna be so weird having the Haus be quiet on Valentine’s,” Chowder chimed in, having finished inhaling his bowl of oatmeal. “Not that I’ll be there, but still!”

Derek plasters on a reasonably Chill face. “No kidding. Whaddya say, Tango? Super Smash Bros or something with me and Dex?”

“Sure!” Tango says. “Oh, wait--”

“He can’t,” Ford interrupts, setting her tray down. “He and Whiskey are working the door for me at The Vagina Monologues.”

Tango turns toward her. “I was meaning to ask you about that. Do the actresses dress up like vaginas? How many are there? Do...”

Derek tunes out the never-ending flow of questions, forcing himself to eat the next bite of his omelet. It’s no different than before, but he can’t taste the cheese or the jalapenos. It takes all of his willpower to make himself swallow.

“What about you, Poindexter?” he asks when he’s sure his voice can be casual. “You have plans?”

“Nah,” Dex says, using his toast to wipe his plate clean. “Just a quiet night. Might be a nice change.”

Derek looks down at his plate. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Definitely a change.”

* * *

Derek pauses outside Thoreau Hall, trying to make himself go in for his last class. But it’s been a long damn day and he’s tired. 

It’s not like he expected a damn parade or anything. And nobody actually forgot his birthday. But he can’t help contrasting Chowder absently wishing him a happy birthday at breakfast, with the rest of the team quietly chiming in, with last year, when Bitty had made his favorite carrot cake and forced them to sing “Happy Birthday” in the locker room.

_ Fuck it.  _ He spins on his heel and heads back toward the Haus. If he gets back early, he can hide in his room and not have to hear everyone getting ready for their V-Day plans.

He walks back across campus, doing his best not to flinch with every happy couple he passes.

The last thing he needs right now is to have his single status forcibly shoved in his face. Maybe if he’s early enough, he can fall asleep before Dex gets back. 

Because seeing Dex, interacting with Dex, is  _ actually _ the last thing he needs. In the state he’s in, with the aura of relationships thick in the fucking air like it always is on Valentine’s Day, he might just slip up and say something dumb. He and Dex are good. They’re solid. Better than Derek ever thought they could be.

They don’t need Derek’s stupid, messy feelings fucking that up.

The Haus is blessedly quiet when he pushes open the door. Derek drops his bag in the hall, knowing he’ll regret it later but unable to make himself care. He’s so tired. He drops his carefully crafted mask of chill along with his bag and lets himself lean on the banister as he heads upstairs. He’s less than fifty steps away from his bed and blissful oblivion. 

_ So close. _ Around the turn at the top of the stairs. Turn right before the wall. A few more steps and--there. 

Derek closes the door behind him with a sigh. He would have lunged for his bed if he had that much energy left. Instead he toes out of his shoes, staggering a little before he regains his balance, and collapsing onto the bed with a sigh.

For a second he’s afraid that his stupid,  _ stupid  _ brain will cheat him out of even this, that his thoughts will spin round and round into an endless vortex, pulling him relentlessly away from sleep.

But for once, he falls mercifully asleep almost as soon as he wriggles under the blanket.

* * *

The light snaps on and Derek jolts awake, groggy and disoriented in the way he always is after napping. It’s almost dark outside, so he must have slept for at least a few hours, but his body doesn’t seem to believe it. He feels like he could sleep for years, wake up decades later like Rip Van Winkle.

“Nursey?” Dex says, his eyes wide. “When did you get here?”

Derek rubs at his eyes. “I dunno, like 2? I was super tired so I skipped my last class. Came back here and crashed. Timezit?” he asks, his jaw cracking on a yawn.

“Like almost five?” Dex says. His ears are pink and as Derek’s brain comes back online, he can see that Dex is hiding something behind his back. “I’ll just--”

“Whatcha got?” Derek asks, interrupted halfway through by another yawn. “Jesus, why can’t I stop yawning?”

The pink spreads from Dex’s ears to his cheeks. “It’s no big deal,” he mutters, backing through the open door.

“Dexxxxx,” Derek coaxes, doing his best to mimic that cat from Shrek, eyes wide and pleading. “C’mon. Showwww me.”

Dex groans, but he steps all the way into the room, closing the door. “It was supposed to be a surprise,” he huffs, pulling his hand out from behind his back. “You never come back to the Haus this early on Wednesday. Of course you have to go and change it up today.”

“Of course,” Derek agrees automatically. He’s trying to process what he’s seeing. “Dex. Did you--is that--”

“Carrot’s your favorite, right?” Dex asks defiantly, setting the small cake gently down on top of the desk. 

Derek nods. This all feels slightly unreal; the quiet Haus, this quiet moment. Maybe he’s still asleep and dreaming. “Yeah,” he agrees, licking his lips. “Did you make me a cake, Poindexter?”

Dex refuses to meet his eyes. “Well, Bitty isn’t here. And it’s your birthday. So I thought--never mind. It’s dumb. But yeah, I made you a cake.”

“It’s not dumb,” Derek says, getting up to look more closely at the cake. It’s small, but pretty. The cream cheese frosting covers the top and sides in beautiful swirls. “It’s...Dex...this is the nicest thing anybody’s ever done for my birthday.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Dex snaps. “Bitty made you a cake twice that size.  _ And _ he made everybody sing Happy Birthday.”

Derek sighs. “Yeah, but…” It takes him a few minutes to figure out how to put it into words. Minutes where he’s afraid Dex will leave. But he stands there, waiting.

“Bitty did that kind of thing for everybody,” Derek says finally. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s an awesome person. But this? It’s special. You did this just for me.”

Dex’s whole face flames bright crimson. He shrugs. “You seemed kind of down or whatever. And everybody had like, couple plans or sex plans, or both. I thought we could get take-out and watch GBBO or something.”

“Yeah, okay,” Derek says. His face feels like it hurts from the effort not to smile like a fucking idiot. “Can we get Thai?”

“It’s your birthday,” Dex says grudgingly. “I wasn’t using those tastebuds anyway.”

Derek slings an arm around his shoulders, pulls him in. Just for a second. “You got that right, white boy.”

* * *

Just past the signature bake on the second episode of the night--it’s cake week; Derek’s pretty sure Dex is about ready to get out a notebook--their phones buzz at nearly the same time. 

Derek almost wants to ignore it. This whole evening, from the takeout to the cake to the way they sit together on Dex’s bed, shoulders touching, has been...well. He knows better than to pretend.

Fishing his phone out of his pocket, he sees that the message is from Chowder to their frog group chat.

**Chowder: i feel rly bad bt missing ur birthday**  
Chowder: Cait says it’s cool if I come back early and hang  
Chowder: what r u guys doing  
Chowder: ?

He feels strangely reluctant to reply. Chowder coming in will change the dynamic; it’ll be the three frogs hanging out, not Derek and Dex sharing an evening. But that’s dumb, and selfish. Dex is Chowder’s friend, too. And this is  _ not _ a date.

Derek forces himself to text back.

**Nursey: nm**  
Nursey: chillin  
Nursey: watching gbbo  
Nursey: tell Farms she can come too if she wants

He hesitates for a second before adding one last text.

**Nursey: dex made me a cake. hurry or i’ll eat the rest**

Before he can tuck his phone away, it buzzes again. Just his this time. Dex glances over and then resolutely back toward the laptop, where some contestant is looking worried about the technical challenge.

Derek looks down at the screen.

**Farms: OMG why didn’t u tell me u guys were on a d8?**

He does his best not to flinch, angling the screen just a little away from Dex before tapping out a reply.

**Nurse: NOt A dATE**  
Nurse: nobody els is home  
Nurse: that’s it

**Farms: mmmhmmm**  
Farms: he made you a cake  
Farms: and now you’re Netflix n chllin  
Farms: but sure. not a date

Derek must have snorted a little louder than he intended, because Dex turns toward him. “Huh?”

“Oh, nothing,” Derek replies, hastily locking his phone before Dex can see the screen. 

They watch the next few minutes of the technical in silence--the contestants don’t know how long they’re supposed to bake their cakes, as fucking usual. 

After a few minutes of watching British people stare worriedly at ovens, Derek can feel the words rising up like vomit in his throat. He does his best to swallow them down, but before even the most anxious competitor has opened their oven, he finds his mouth opening.

“Farms thinks this is a date,” he says, doing his best to sound super casual.  _ Ha, ha, isn’t that funny, the idea of you and me on a date. _

He can’t bring himself to look at Dex when he says it, his eyes fixed on the screen where someone finally broke and pulled their cake out. The silence stretches, broken only by the sound of twelve people fretting about frosting.

Derek finally steals a glance at Dex. His amber eyes are just as firmly on the screen as Derek’s were a moment ago, and his cheeks are just as pink as his ears. Wheels start turning in Derek’s head, but he can’t quite bring himself to believe it. 

There are those words again, though, spilling out before he can stop them. “Dex,” he says softly, almost too softly to hear. “Is this a date?”

“No,” Dex says quickly. Derek’s heart falls into his stomach, so fast that he almost doesn’t hear Dex’s net words, mumbled quietly toward the screen. “I didn’t ask you or anything.”

“You did,” Derek insists, tapping the spacebar to pause because this is important. “You asked me if I wanted to get takeout and watch GBBO and I said yes.”

Dex makes a rude noise. “That doesn’t count.”

Derek doesn’t know why he’s arguing, aside from the fact that it’s him and Dex and that’s what they do, but he can’t stop. “It totally counts. This is a thousand percent a date.”

“It---you---” Dex closes his mouth. “Fine. It’s a date. Happy?”

“Fucking giddy.” It’s nothing but the truth, and Derek can’t make it come out any other way. There are honest-to-Christ butterflies fluttering in his stomach, hearing those words come out of Dex’s mouth. But-- “I wasn’t trying to, like, pressure you or anything, bro. Clearly you’re not into it, and that’s chill.”

Dex’s jaw sets in a familiar way and he actually meets Derek’s eyes. “Who says I’m not into it?”

“You literally just spent like five minutes telling me this isn’t a date,” Derek points out. “That seems to imply a certain level of not-into-it-ness. It’s chill, dude. For some reason, my dashing good looks and manly bod aren’t everybody’s cup of tea. I acknowledge this.”

The noise that Dex makes can only be described as a growl. “You don’t know as much as you think you do, Nurse. Maybe I wanted our first date to be something special, not just takeout and Netflix.”

Derek has the sudden urge to shake his head like a cartoon character to check his hearing. “What?”

He more than half-expects Dex to take it back, but he just stares Derek down with that familiar stare. “You heard me.”

The smile spreading across Derek’s face is impossible to contain. “Well, maybe this is perfect for our first date and I love it.”

Dex’s pugnacious glare slowly melts into something softer, something Derek’s only rarely gotten to see. “Yeah?” Dex asks softly.

“Yeah,” Derek says. Even with this level of encouragement, it takes almost all of his courage to reach down and slide his hand into Dex’s. “This is the best birthday ever.”

Dex’s face is pinker than ever, but his smile is almost as big as the one making Derek’s cheeks ache. He laces their fingers together and starts the show going with the other hand.

They watch in silence for another few minutes, but it’s different now. It’s different because Dex’s palm is warm against his, because now it’s okay for Derek to snuggle a little closer. Because now Dex is untangling their fingers, but it’s so he can wrap his arm around Derek’s shoulders.

“Best. Birthday. Ever,” he murmurs, letting his head fall onto Dex’s shoulder.

He drifts like that through most of the rest of the episode, a little bit high on the contact and just the fact that this is happening. Just when Mel is about to announce Star Baker, he has a thought.

“Wait. So, this is a date.”

“Yes, Derek,” Dex says, and oh, the shiver that runs down his spine from hearing Dex say his name in that tone is going to need investigation. “We’ve established that. I believe you said it was ‘perfect.’”

Derek pokes him in the stomach. “Yes, William, I was here. I had a point.” Also filed away for future reference is the fact that Dex--Will, seems to like Derek saying his name, too.

“You usually do,” Dex sighs. 

“My  _ point, _ ” Derek continues, “is that we both live here. So how am I supposed to get a goodnight kiss? Maybe we could go downstairs for a snack and then I could kiss you before we go back in the room? Or maybe--”

“ _ Derek _ ,” Will says, his voice exasperated but still somehow fond. Had it always sounded like this? Had Derek missed it somehow? “Shut up, okay?”

He slips a hand around the back of Derek’s neck and pulls him in, their lips pressing together before Derek has fully grasped what’s happening.

Will’s mouth is soft on his, gentle. Lingering. Derek tilts his head a little, flicking his tongue gently across Will’s lips, and Will rewards him with a shaky breath. It’s tempting, so tempting, to go faster, to deepen the kiss. To lick inside Will’s mouth and see what other sounds he makes. 

But Derek can practically feel how fragile this thing is between them, delicate and new, so he pulls back instead, pressing his mouth to Will’s cheek for one last taste. Will’s skin is soft under his lips, flushed warm and pink. Derek wants nothing more to stay in this moment forever. He knows they can’t, though, that everything has to end eventually. 

He tucks his face into Will’s neck with a sigh. Will’s arms pull him closer, and he slides his own arms around Will’s waist. 

“I’m scared I’m going to wake up tomorrow and find out I dreamed this,” Will confesses, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

“Me, too,” Derek admits. “Can we...can we sleep together? Just sleep?”

Will’s smile might be the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. “I’d like that,” he says, almost shyly.

When he wakes up the next morning, Derek decides that he was wrong. The most beautiful thing he’s ever seen is Will’s face, his eyes blinking sleepily in the early morning light.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> If you like NurseyDex and relatable content about being queer, tired, and wanting fries, you might want to [follow me on Tumblr](http://dizzy-redhead.tumblr.com). 
> 
> I hoard comments like dragons hoard literally everything; they make me smile, even if it's just a smiley or a heart!


End file.
